directed by Lothar :\.1endes, \\ ith Charles Laughton and Maureen O'Sullivan.. . . ç Aug. 31 at 5 :30: "Rasputin and the Enl- press" (1932), directed by Richard Bole- slav ky, ,\, ith John, Ethel and Lionel Barry- Inore. . . . ç Sept. 1 at 12: 30: "Babes in Arms" (1939), directed by Busby Berkeley, \vith Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney.. . . ç Sept. 1 at 3: "A.. Night at the Opera" (1935), directed by Sam Wood, Vv ith tlw 1-Iarx Brothers.. . ç Sept. 1 at 5 :30: "Babes in Arm .". . ç Sept 2 at 2: "Their Own De- sire" (1929), directed by E. Mason Hopper, with Norma Shearer and Robert 1tIont- gOlnery. . . . ç Sept. 2 at 5 :30: "The Big City" (1937), directed by Frank Borzage, with Spencer Tracy and Luise RaIner. . . . C] Sept 3 at 2: "The Thin :Man" (1934), directed by VV. S. Van Dyke, with Myrna Loy and Wil- liam PO\\ ell. . . . ç Sept. 3 at 5 :30: "Naughty J\farietta" (1935), directed by \l";. S. Van Dyke, with Jeanette J\facDonald and Nelson Eddv. . . . C] Sept. 4 at noon: M-G-M cartoons and fedturettes.... ç Sept 4 at 2: "Hold Your Man" (1933) directed by Sam Wood, with Jean Harlow and Clark Gable.... ç Sept. 4 at 5 :30: "Their Own Desire.". . . ç Sept. 5 at 2: M -G-M cartoons and fea- turettes. . . . ç Sept. 5 at 5 :30: "Tugboat An- nie" (1933), directed by Mervyn Le Roy, with Marie Dressler and Wallace Beery. . . . ç Sept. 5 at 8: "Emma" (1931), directed by Clarence Brown, \vith Marie Dressler and Richard Cromwell; and "Politics" (1931), di- rected by Charle Reisner, with Marie Dress- ler and Polly Moran. (A limited number of reservations are available, but only to those applying for them in person at the museum after lIon the day of the showing or, if it is a Sunday, after noon. Reservations for the showing at 8 "viI] not be accepted before 5.30 Wednesdays admission on a first-cOlne, first-served ba is.) New YORI< CULTURAL CENTER, 2 Columbus Circle (LT 1-2311)-,l\.ug. 28 at 4 and 6: "Fla- mingo Road" ( 1 949) directed by Michael IN BR.IEF 15 Curtiz vçith Joan Cra\\ ford and Sydney Greenstreet. . . . c]] Aug. 29 at 4 and 6: "Man nequin" (1937) directed by Frank Borzage, with Joan Crawford and Spencer Tracy. . . ç Aug. 30 at 5 and 7 :30: "People Will Talk" (195 1 ), directed by Joseph L Mankiewicz, with Carv Grant and Jeanne Crain. ç Aug. 3 I at 4 and 6: "Johnny Belinda" (1948), directed by Jean Negule cü, with Jane vVyman and Lew A..yres. . . . ç Sept. 1 at 4 and 6: "La Bohème" (1926), a silent fihn, directed by King Vidor, with Lillian Gish and John Gilbert.... ç Sept. 4 at 3 and 6. "La Marseillaise" (1938), in French directed by Jean Renoir, with Pierre Renoir and Louis J ouvet; English titles. . . . ç Sept. 5 at 4 and 6: "La Bête Humaine" (IQ38), in French, directed by Jean Renoir, with Jean Gabin and SÍ1none Simon; English titles. (A.. IÍ1nited number of reservations are available but only to those applying for them in perSOll at the center after lIon the day of the show- ing) SEE ABOVE FOR THEATRE ADDRESSES AND TELEPHONE NUMBERS. THE DATE OF REVIEW IN THESE PAGES IS GIVEN FOR FILMS LESS THAN TWO YEARS OLD. THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD (1 938)-One of the most popular of all adventure films; stir- ring for children and intensely nostalgic fOl adults With Errol Flynn slinging a deel across his shoulders, almost inIprobably pretty Olivid de Havilland as Mdid Marian, Alan Hale as Little John, Ian Hunter as Richard the Lion-Hearted, and, for villainy, Basil Rathbone and Claude Rains Michael Curtiz and William Keighley directed; Erich Wolfgang Korngold did the marvellou score (Elgin; Sept. 1-2.) ALICE IN WONDERLAND (1951 )-....t\ cartoon ver- sion from Disney that dilutes the material to a pale variety of \iV himsey and adds shiny little tunes. :Not popular with children at the time of its release; hecause of the mushroom episode and the many transformations, it is no\\ considered d turn-on for hedds. (\V dver- ly, and FestivaL... ç U. A. East; through Sept. 3.) ANIMAL CRACKERS (1930)- The Marx Brothers in "their pre-I-IollYVvood period; like "The Cocoanuts" of the year before, it \vas filmed in A.storia and it looks stagey But the film IS too jOy ous for cavilling Groucho i the fear- less African explorer Captain Spaulding, who deigns to attend a party at Rittenhouse Manor, on Long Island; J\fargaret Dumont is Mrs Rittenhouse, and Lillian Roth is hel daughter Arabella. Once again. the script \\,as by George S Kdufman and Morrie Ryskind; this tinle the ongs ("Hooray for Captain Spaulding" and "Why Anl I So Romantic") are by Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby. (Sut- ton) THE ApPRENTICESHIP OF DUDDY KRAVITz-Mordecai Richler's very long pulp novel has been made into a longish, novelistic lnovie by Ted Kotcheff. :0;ineteen-year-old Duddy Kravitz (Richard Dreyfuss) lives in the biggest J e,\Tish cOlnn1unity in Canada, in the Montreal of 1948. His father (Jack Warden) pitnps to add to his income as a taxi-driver; his uncle (J oseph Wiseman) i putting Duddy's elder brother through medical school. Duddy works a" a sunlmer \vaiter at a Jewish resort hotel, w here he is lnortified by the other sumrner waiters, who are a cut above him and come from McGill The \\1 ord "apprenticeship" l1Iakes the film sound ironic, but apprentice- ship to \'\That? Life? Or the hinted-at fake exi "tence of nloney-making? The screenplay \\as adapted from Richler's novel by Lionel Chet\\'ynd Denholm Elliott, as a posh Eng- lish film director oratoricallv devoted to A..rt '" hile filming bcu mitzvahs ãnd \veddings, is the best thing in the film. (Reviewed In the e pages 7/22/74.) (Baronet, and Little Car- ne15 i e. ) BANG THE DRUM SLOWLY (1973 )-A fictional story, v\lith very good, offhand dialogue by J\fark Harris (based on his own novel), about an ace pitcher locked in alliance to a dumb catcher, dying of Hodgkin's disease, whom he once hated for slow-wittedness. Directed by John Hancock, with Michael Moriarty as the pitcher, and Robert De iro as the dOOlned catcher. (0 10/73) (Gramercy, and N" e\\ Yorker; through Sept. 3.) BELLE DE JOUR (1967 )-Buñuel's beautiful and gently con1Íc color fihn of a well-bred girl's rapt fantasies of sadomasochisnl. Catherine Deneuve as the heroine In French. (Re- gency; Sept. 4-5.) BILLY JACK (1971 )-A fascinating, mixed-up l1Iovie, made by Tom Laughlin and his wife, Delores Taylor They star in it, he as Billy Jack, a half-breed who is also half l11an of action, half mystic, and she as a pacifist Southwestern woman who runs an experi- mental "freedom schoo!." There's a sweet, naïve feeling to the movie even \vhen it's violent and melodr dmatic and atrocious, and when it's good it's good in an unorthodox irnprovisatory style. The picture has a special appeal to very young audiences, in part be- cause Billy Jack uses his mystical powers on behalf of the young. (Beekman.) BLAZING SADDLEs-lVIel Brooks's comedy of chaos with a surfeit of chao and a carcity of com- edy. The story is about a modern black hip- ster (Cleavon Little) who becomes sheriff in a Western town in the eighteen-sixties, Gene vVilder and }fadeline Kahn manage to re- deem some of the film, but most of the cast (including Brooks himself) mug and smirk and shout insults at each other. Brooks's cele- brated spontaneous wit isn't in evidence: the old gags here never were very funny; re- hashed, they Just seem desperate (2/18 / 74) (11urray Hill; through Sept. 3.) BRING ME THE HEAD OF ALFREDO GARCIA-Directed by Sam Peckinpah. Someone snitched the head of the filnl, too. (East 59th Street II, and R.K.O. 86th St. T\vin 2.) BROTHER SUN, SISTER MOON (1973)-The story of Francis of Assisi directed bv Franco Zef- firelli, with Graharn Faulkner as Francis (Regency; Sept. 2-3.) BUSTER AND BILLIE-Set in Georgia in 1948, about coed friendship. The film ends with a com- munal rape and killing, so it's not for the young. It has a faintly faked aura of lyricism dnd of homesickness for a far from good tirne in the forties, \vhich makes it not for anyone else, either, though there are a few good, in- complete touches about a believably unlikely friendshIP. Directed by Daniel..Petrie. (Co- lumhia II, Juliet 2, and Loews 83rd St. . . . (jj Greenwich; through Sept. 3.) BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID (19 6 9)- Paul N e\\ man and Robert Redford are charming people to watch on the screen, even \'\Then the vehicle doesn't do them justice. George Roy I-lill directed this overblown, frolic ome Western (Columbia I, Guild, and Embassy 72nd St.... ç Gramercy; starting Sept. 4.) CALIFORNIA SPLIT-Robert A1tlnan's beautiful, slnoky, funny film about galnbling, vvith Elli- ott Gould as a retaliatory-minded joker and George Segal as a magazine writer with sonlethlng clenched about hÍ1n Gould's per- formance is perfect, disguising an abandoned face in a gregarious ape's mask. Segal has en- tirely entered into Altman's quixotic style. As with garnbhng itself, the Í1npulses of the characters seem a matter of luck or catastro- phe, lived out in a \\ orld denuded of every- thing that can't be hocked. The film seems to be being improvised. We catch at events and personalities by the ends of threads. The sound track of Joseph Walsh's first-rate screenplay is full of munnurs and densely packed with talk, recorded on eight tracks. often with eleven mikes going at once This is Altlnan's best film since "McCabe & Mrs. Miller"-cOluic, 100se-IÍ1nbed, dangerous, with a kindly eye for the out-of-step. U 19 74) (Cinema I ) CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS (1937)-One of the J\f-G-M powerhouse entertainments; beefy and rousing and good fun for all (Great fOl children-ahnost guardnteed tedrs and laugh- ter.) Freddie Bartholomew plays the rich brat who learns about life from the fishermen of the Gloucester fleet, especially from Spen- cer Tracy (as a Portuguese), and with a little help fronl Mickey Rooney. Victor Fleming keeps the handsome production in motron: the Kipling novel vva re\vorked by first-rate hands: John Lee Mahin, Marc Connelly, and Dale Van Every With Melvyn Douglas, the inevitable Lionel BarrYlnore, John Carradine, Charley Grape\yin, Leo G. Carroll, and J acl.. La Rue, cast against type as a priest: the score is by Franz Waxman. (Theatre 80 St Marks; starting Sept. 4.) CHINATOWN-A thriller for grownups-more about greed than about blood-spilling-cli- rected hy Roman Polanski The film is ob viously steeped in knowledge of older Hol- lywood-thriller mclsters, but it is full of young verve, and bows to no one. John Huston plays a Biblical figure called N oab Cross; Faye Dunaway is a mysteriously wid- owed beauty called Mrs. J\fulwray, who hires a private eye (Jack Nicholson) to solve the puzzle of her husband's death The main topic is really the misuse of the Los Angeles \vater system. Who would have thought that that could provide the matter for such a good thriller? Jack Nicholson's performances get better and more lissome every time. The fihll, set in the thirties, from a script by Robert To\vne, i wickedly skillful and funny, and socially alert. (7 1/74) (34th St. East, and Coronet. ) CHLOÉ IN THE AFTERNOON (1972)-Will the squeamish, married hero (Bernard Verley) break down and go to bed with bohemian Chloé (Zouzou), or won't he? The author-di- rector Eric Rohmer, a specialist in the eroti- cism of nonsexual affairs, is a superb lapi- dary craftsman who works on a very small scale. This movie is, in its way, just about pel fect, but it's lninor, and so polished that it prdctically evaporates a half hour after it's over. In French. (10/7/72) (Carnegie Hclll Cinelna; Aug. 29.) CITY LIGHTS (1931)- The famous old Chdplin item. The mi111e is wonderful, the lonely use of ound for a s\\,allowerl whistle at a party is wonderful, the sight gags dre wonderful; the sentirnentality about the blind girl is faintly frightening. (Quad Cinema; Sept. 2-3.) CLAIRE'S KNEE (1970)-The air is thick with summer and leisure in Eric Rohmer's serene story of a vacationing diplomat (Jean-Claude Brialy) who says he is interested only in \"omen's minds and then has an "undefined desire" to stroke a young girl's knee. There's a rather enigl11atiC' WOlllan novelist who stands in for the director and makes ponderous re- luarks, but Rohnler's quiet, complacent mo\- ie-novel game is plea ing, and an exquisitely gawky teen-age actress, Beatrice Romand, who plays a subsidiary role, look like ct Pisa- nello princess In French. (Carnegie Hall Cinema; Aug. 29.) CLAUDINE-A Harlem love story that would re- flect a ophisticated, knowing exhaustion if it concerned \vhites, but maintains its taln- ina, good humor, and cheek because it i'5 pldyed, and mostly made, by blacks A moth- er on welfclre (Diahann Carroll) with six children is loyed by a garbage luan called